The Risks and Benefits of Accepting Credit Cards

As a small business owner, you’re looking to keep up with the times, especially when it comes to understanding risks you face along the way. We understand that first hand, since Paradiso Insurance is a small business located right here in Stafford Springs. We do encourage all of our customers to shop small and shop local here within our community, but without providing the right customer experience, your customers may be turned astray. The customer experience can be finicky though, and can easily be affected by how easy or difficult it is for customers to shop at your small business. There are many details that make up the customer experience, including the service your customers receive, how understandable your products or services are, and how easy it is for customers to pay for your goods. That’s why many small businesses are now ready to accept credit cards, in an effort to make paying for bills easy and convenient. If you’re a small business owner that has decided you are going to accept credit cards, we want to help you understand both the risks and benefits of accepting credit cards, this way you can ensure the future of your business is properly protected.

Benefits of Accepting Credit Cards

As a small business owner, you’re always looking for proactive ways to better your business as a whole, and we understand that! Here are some of the benefits of accepting credit cards that your small business can embrace:

• Accepting credit cards can help increase your sales. If you choose to conduct business on a cash-only basis, you limit the amount of customers you can attract as a whole.
• Credit cards can encourage impulsive buying decisions. Shoppers like when things are quick and easy, so if you accept credit cards, their likeliness of making a purchase could greatly increase.
• If you accept credit cards, you stay on par with your competition.
• Accepting credit cards isn’t terribly expensive for your business. While credit card processing is a competitive industry, the rates for processing credit cards are pretty affordable for businesses of all sizes to embrace. You could even get started with looking at an option like Square.
• Accepting credit cards eliminates the risk of accepting a check that will bounce. Additionally, credit card transactions are all screened as they are processed, which will reduce the risk of fraud as well.
• Accepting credit cards helps to legitimize your business – once you have logos of the various credit cards next to your register or on your website, you grab cardholders’ attention and make them more willing to make a purchase.
• Accepting credit cards is crucial to your business online. If you have any sort of web based stores, this is the only way you can keep up with competition, and we understand that.

Risks of Accepting Credit Cards

Of course, with all of these great benefits for your company when you accept credit cards, you may be thinking it could be time to take the leap of faith. While we  find it valuable to “keep up with the times” and provide the best possible customer experience you can, it’s also important to know what risks you can face along the way. Here’s the risks associated when you choose to accept credit cards:

• Risk of fraud – no matter how secure your business is, any time a payment is funded electronically, there is a risk of cyber criminals to get ahold of the information.
• You may have additional bookkeeping expenses – credit card or debit card transactions add a new layer to the auditing and bookkeeping process for any business. Unfortunately, more electronic transactions means you need to spend more time on transactions.
• You must stay updated with PCI Security Standards – this is a set of rules that make sure all companies process, store and transmit sensitive credit card information in a secure environment to protect customers as a whole.
• Data breach – this is the biggest risk of all. Now that you’ve considered the extra bookkeeping, additional electronic transactions, and so on, you must consider that your business will be storing all of this sensitive information on behalf of your customers. If your business fell victim to a cyber liability threat, that could mean the exposure of all of your clients’ or customers’ card information, and that could result in the downfall of your entire investment…

Staying Properly Protected

Here at Paradiso Insurance, we would hate to see any of our commercial insurance clients have to close their doors. That is why we offer various policies that can provide the protection you need for your business to stay afloat, no matter what the circumstances. If you want to learn more about our cyber liability policies, give one of our professional insurance agents a call today. We’ll be happy to put ourselves in your shoes to understand your business’ individual needs, and make sure you have the protection you need if you accept credit cards.